Former President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference at Trump Tower on May 31, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by David Dee Delgado/Getty Images)
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Tuesday helped Joe Kent make his closing argument to voters in a nationally watched congressional race in southwest Washington.
After three of his own campaign rallies, Trump joined Kent in an evening tele-town hall to voice support for the Republican dueling Democratic U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez in the 3rd Congressional District. The race is one of a handful that will decide which party controls the U.S. House. Gluesenkamp Perez beat Kent by roughly 2,600 votes in the 2022 election.
“Joe will be by my side, that I can tell you,” said Trump, who described Gluesenkamp Perez as a “basic disaster.”
Also Tuesday, Trump posted on social media his “complete and total endorsement” for Republican Jerrod Sessler, who is trying to unseat five-term incumbent Republican Rep. Dan Newhouse in the 4th Congressional District in central Washington.
In the tele-rally, Trump spoke for about six minutes, walking through priorities he wants to pursue if elected to another term in the White House — including “the largest deportation of criminals in the history of our country,” slashing regulations, ending taxes on tips and overtime, rolling back policies to expand electric vehicle use, and cutting federal funding for schools “pushing critical race theory” and “radical gender ideology.”
“But for all of that to happen, you have to get out. You have to vote,” he said.
Kent, in his appeal, said, “We need to flip this seat so we can actually pursue President Trump’s agenda.”
Trump and Kent recalled how they first met at Dover Air Force Base in 2019 when the remains of Kent’s late wife, Shannon, were returned to the United States after she was killed in a suicide bombing while deployed with the Navy in northeastern Syria.
Tensions were heightened in the 3rd District this week after a ballot drop box in Vancouver was burned early Monday in an arson incident that damaged and destroyed hundreds of ballots.
Following that incident, Gluesenkamp Perez swiped at Kent on Tuesday, saying he wanted to defund the FBI, the agency investigating the fire. “Joe Kent will create dangerous situations that divide our community,” she said in a social media post. “He is disconnected from reality, and he will make us all less safe.”
Meanwhile Tuesday, Trump called Sessler a “fantastic candidate” who will “fight hard every day to Secure the Border, Stand for the Rule of Law, Strengthen our Military, Take Care of our Vets, Defend our Nation, and Protect our always under siege Second Amendment.”
And Trump, as he has before, pilloried Newhouse, one of 10 Republicans in the House to vote to impeach Trump in 2021 following the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol. Sessler attended the rally and march that preceded the riot but has said he did not enter the Capitol that day.
The presidential candidate, as he has previously, ridiculed Newhouse as a “pathetic RINO” – Republican in Name Only – “who voted to, for no reason, Impeach me. Newhouse has to go!”
Voting is underway in Washington state. Ballots must be turned into an elections office, placed in a drop box, or postmarked by 8 p.m. Tuesday to be counted.